Feeling a little frantic and overwhelmed? It’s all too common at this time of year, when prepping for the holidays, wrapping up this year at work, and planning for next year collide.
I’ve noticed recurring themes in my recent conversations with leaders: Everyone is being asked to do more with less, feeling fearful about economic uncertainty, and doing their best to operate with relentless targets, slashed budgets, and decimated teams. Against this backdrop, how do you recharge yourself and your team, and create space for strategic direction?

When was the last time you saw something that genuinely inspired you? The answer to that question is a good indication of how much you’re investing in experimentation—and it provides a surprisingly accurate view of how quickly your team will be able to deliver value.

95% of AI transformations so far have failed to create the expected return on investment. This new research from MIT has led to a number of eye-catching headlines recently.

I wish I could say I find this surprising, but given the statistics I often cite about 70–95% of digital transformations failing, this feels like the same old story with a slightly new cast of characters.

There’s a seemingly contradictory aspect to transformation. While we can’t expect it to happen overnight, the moment we decide to embark on a transformation journey, the clock begins to tick, and our stakeholders are expecting to see results. In fact, many of them want to know when to expect results before we’ve even started, which is something I wrote about recently.

How do you navigate these expectations?

One of the most common—and annoying—questions I get from leaders at the start of a transformation is: How do we make this scale? Not conceptually, but please draw up a detailed plan and execute scale immediately. 

When we have established what we need to scale, we can answer that. Otherwise we’re creating hubris, not strategic improvement.

Is your team culture as healthy as you think it is? Forget the glossy mission statement—how does it really feel to work in your team day to day? In this post, I share the stark contrast between two teams facing similar challenges—and how one thrived while the other floundered. If you’ve ever witnessed credit-stealing, blame games, or leadership lip service to values, this one’s for you. It’s time to get honest about culture—and its impact on achieving transformation goals.

On my way home from Agile India, I ran into a moment of pure travel panic: I couldn’t access my boarding pass on the British Airways app—something I needed just to get into the airport. Sadly, this kind of failure no longer surprises me. BA, like many other companies, seems to have traded reliability and user experience for cost-cutting and complexity.

Why does it feel like so much tech is getting worse? And more importantly—what can we do about it?

I recently had the opportunity to attend Mind the Product’s Leadership Forum in London. It was wonderful to connect with product colleagues in person and it also provided some fascinating insight into what’s weighing on everyone’s minds these days. Here are a few of my takeaways.

This month marks ten years since we published Communicating the UX Vision: 13 Anti-Patterns That Block Good Ideas. I sat down with my co-author James O’Brien to reflect on what led us to write this book, what we learned during the process, and how the design and product development world has changed (and hasn’t) in the decade since. Spoiler alert: Many of the anti-patterns we point out are just as prevalent today as they were when the book first came out.

While it is possible to set up balanced teams, I see organisations struggle with the shift towards cross-functional empowered product teams again and again. And it happens today just as much as when I started out in the mid-’90s. I am not surprised by the Harvard Business Review article that asserts 75% of cross-functional teams are dysfunctional. This sounds like such a simple and familiar concept, yet it proves difficult to set a group of people up for success in an organization. To the point where people feel like thought leaders are describing the impossible.

Equus coaching is a truly transformational experience. Working with a horse gives you immediate, unbiased feedback on how you’re showing up as a leader, plus a safe space to experiment and try something different.

However, I recognise that for many people, signing up for this type of experience involves a giant leap of faith. You don’t know what to expect or what you might get out of it. This seems rather curious, and quite a contrast to your usual coaching sessions. Here, Aoife Ní Mhóráin is sharing her experience.

In times of crisis, we gravitate back to what’s familiar. This is a natural inclination. As a result, leaders are falling back to their bad habits: waterfall, top-down product development, shortsightedness, Gannt charts, CEOs who tell teams what to build instead of setting a strategic vision.  

But all that uncertainty is still there. Now, it’s just lurking beneath what feels comfortable and predictable. I’ll share a coaching question to help you rise to new challenges.

A heart-felt thank you to everyone who has contributed to the past five years of my labour-of-love transformation practice. Here is to the next five: partnering with you to drive AI&Product transformation to enable your innovation practice, support you on your leadership journey, and make your dreams come true.

It’s hard to avoid the word “transformation” these days. Everyone is on a transformation journey—or at least they claim to be. Check if these six anti-patterns of transformation theatre hold you back from achieving your goals.